The respondent, Ella Williams, an automobile assembly line worker, was first employed by the petitioner, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc., at Toyota’s automobile manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, in 1990, where she worked on an assembly line using pneumatic tools. Eventually she began to experience pain in her hands, wrists and arms, for which she sought treatment and was diagnosed with bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome and bilateral tendinitis. Her personal physician placed her on certain restrictions regarding her movements, and Toyota assigned her to various alternative jobs to accommodate her limitations. When Williams missed work for medical reasons due to job-related tasks, she filed a claim under the Kentucky Workers’ Compensation Act. Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. §342.0011 et seq. (1997 and Supp. 2000). This claim was settled between the parties, and Williams returned to work. However, she remained dissatisfied with Toyota’s efforts to accommodate her work restrictions and brought an action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky claiming that Toyota had refused to accommodate her disability, a suit that was again settled, and she returned to work as a Quality Control Inspection Operations (QCIO) worker which involved the visual inspection of vehicles. Both parties agreed that she was able to perform these duties satisfactorily. However, in the fall of 1996, the job duties changed and Williams was required to perform some additional physical tasks, which caused Williams difficulty.
This Supreme Court case further narrowed the definition of “disability” under the ADA (prior to the ADAAA). The Court held that to be “substantially limited” in the major life activity of performing manual tasks, an individual must have an impairment that prevents or severely restricts them from doing activities that are of central importance to daily life, not just those at work. This high bar for proving disability also contributed to the need for the ADAAA to clarify Congress’s original intent.